The question of register—a specific range of the total pitches available to an instrument—was an important aspect of orchestration taught at the Paris Conservatoire during Ravel's youth, the more specific relevance of which, of course, is attested to in the treatises of Berlioz (1844, 1855), Gevaert (1885), and Widor (1904; modeled after Berlioz), which we know Ravel consulted frequently. We know, too, that Ravel was interested in writing a treatise on orchestration, though it was his good friend and colleague Charles Koechlin who eventually succeeded in doing so, and on a comprehensive scale. Ravel's interest in the extreme registers of virtually all instruments was well known: orchestral players, friends, and performers were often sought out about how to challenge their instruments’ capabilities, and even a brief survey of orchestral audition materials from the twentieth century reveals a disproportionately high number of Ravel excerpts (especially in view of the size of his symphonic oeuvre). What might at first appear to be a relatively narrow aspect of managing musical sound—moving and removing, placing and displacing one's materials throughout various ranges—was, in fact, an intendedly ambiguous aspect of Ravel's style, and one acknowledged by Vuillermoz as distinguishing him from Debussy. A composer may use (or, indeed, abuse) varying ranges of instruments to create, fulfill, or deceive expectations, but Ravel extended the principle from individual instruments (including the piano) and sections or choirs of instruments, to the basic building blocks of his art—to the familiar categories of melody, rhythm, and harmony, and also to timbre. Since registration was intimately related, the question of agency in what Jörg Christian Martin called Ravel's “wandering instrumentation” may be carried forward: much beyond the obvious “wanderings” in Ravel's universe of sound.

I. Melos

Concerto for the Left Hand (1930)

Martin noted how Ravel's “wandering” solo and thematic lines assume a dynamic role in the shaping and form of their respective works, as may be seen in more detail in the two piano concertos.